Field key
Whose pallet is this?
Answer one question at a time about the pallet in front of you. The key ends with who most likely owns it and whether it's yours to sell, recycle or return. Nothing is stored.
Someone else's pallet: contact the company on the mark
The company named in the stencil or brand mark.
A pallet marked PROPERTY OF or RETURN TO belongs to the company it names, even if it's bare wood. Many manufacturers run their own return loops.
Contact that company and ask how it wants them back. If it's one of the rental pools in our directory, the link is there.
How the key decides
Ownership is marked on the pallet. Rental pools paint their pallets a solid color and stencil or mold their name on them, because they need strays to be recognized and sent back. A pallet with no paint and no owner mark is almost always a white-wood pallet, bought and sold outright. Construction and condition don't change who owns a pallet; they decide whether it's reused, repaired or recycled.
What the key won't tell you
It can't read a pallet you can't see, and colors fade. When a stencil names an owner, the stencil wins over the color. When in doubt, treat a painted pallet as someone else's and ask the company named on it.
All the outcomes
- A rental pallet. It goes back to its owner
- A rental pallet. It goes back to its owner
- A plastic rental pallet. It goes back to its owner
- Probably yours: a plain plastic pallet
- Someone else's pallet: contact the company on the mark
- A white-wood pallet, and it's yours to sell
- A repairable white-wood pallet, yours to sell or recycle
- Scrap: yours to recycle